We spent our first night at a motorway place, after a very happy dinner of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Our area of SCotland does not possess one single KFC place. My mom and I suffer serious withdrawal problems so we really enjoyed the meal a lot. ;-)
The next morning we passed a sign saying "Cheddar Gorge" and hubby
said, "Let's go look."
Now, I'd heard of Cheddar gorge, but was imagining a road going above the gorge, with maybe a place to stop and look. Rather like the Storm river gorge and Oribi gorge I've visited in South Africa.
Nope, not like that at all! In Cheddar the road runs through Ceddar town and on through the gorge. There are tiny shops, restaurants and even a hotel all wedged tightly into the gorge near the town end. There are also entrances to caves and other touristy attractions. It's mind boggling! No suprise that there are loads of places advertising they sell cheddar cheese. It was all very pretty, but a bit overwhelming and a tad claustrophobic. So many people, and so many ways to be tempted to buy buy buy,can get a bit too much. Since parking is pretty nil in the area where the shops are we opted to rather drive through and stop in the parking areas nearer the far edge, where there were less tourists and bustle.
It's hard to give a good impression of how deep the gorge is with photographs. When I tried photographing looking staight up I couldn't get the entire cliffside into the shot, so most of these photos are taken from as far back as I could get. I would highly recommend looking at Cheddar town and Gorge on Google maps as the aerial shots of the gorge are very impressive.
First photo of the more green side of the gorge (the left going out of Cheddar).
This next photo is of the right side of the road and gorge. Much more rocky cliffs, full of cracks and caves.
The next three photos are of views further along at other parking areas. The gorge winds and zigzags for quite a way and there are several parking areas for cars and/or busses.
Finally... the road leaving the gorge.
Those are some really breathtaking pictures, Michelle. We need some pictures with you in them!
ReplyDeleteTo answer your request, I"m at
vmats_s60452@yahoo.com
Everything is great with the person we discussed before. God bless her, she's a wonderful person. It's all worked out! :)
Hi Vince
ReplyDeletethank you for the email address... and I'm glad that worry was all sorted out. :-)
yes, I do have photos of me at Stonehenge which I'll be adding soon.
Thanks for trying your best to show us the extent of the gorge.I can imagine it must be awe inspiring looking at it in person!
ReplyDeleteYou can move to Singapore. We have far too many KFCs!
Hi Ting
ReplyDeleteHow funny. Here there are loads of Curry, Thai and Chinese food places, but no KFC.
It's so very, very green - almost like moss growing on the cliffs and rocks - stunning gorge! (it does remind me a bit of Storms River, actually) J.
ReplyDeletele Sigh, I ache for overwhelmingly gorgeous countryside now. Not sure I've ever seen a gorge.
ReplyDeleteJacques
ReplyDeleteI love the Storm River gorge. We stopped on one of the bridges over a really deep area on our honeymoon. It took Sandy four photos to get it from top to bottom. I stuck them together on the computer. I should post that here some time. :-)
Genie
It was hard even for me returning to Scotland. Northern Scotland looked sort of bleak and rocky after all that lush plush garden-of-Eden-ness. After a few days I was happy to be back though. The price of that lushness is a country crammed full of tiny villages and huge cities = you don't get away from it all easily.
Not all of England is lush. Going back home we went through Yorkshire and the Moors where the Brontes would have written their great romances. I totally hated the area. VERY bleak and even the houses look depressed! But the South West... oh my! I could live there if I even won the lottery! *sigh*
CROW!!! Mwhahahaha, I made it! Fantastic blog, and what a beautiful place you have been to here, it is gorge-ous--Lol, I know--cheesy--Lolol!! Oh, they are just rolling off the fingers tonight...
ReplyDeleteokay... okay, not only should I not blog when tired, but I too, need to avoid posting commentary when dually so.
I will be around later when I have had more sleep... or so goes the idea.
Imp!
Imp
ReplyDeleteyaay! So glad to add you to my blogging buddies.
I LOVE the puns, cheesy as they might be (grin), but I do understand the late night giddy thing. My mom always says, "never write a letter late at night." She says she always found she wrote really dumb soppy things if she wrote letters late.
I've now expanded to blogging, forums,emails etc. For some reason I also get goofy around midnight. More emotional, more mushy, more weird humour. I can get really dark funny or so sweet sentimental I rot the teeth of people reading me!
and Thank you for the kind comments on my blog. :-)
WOW! Beautiful pictures! I haven't had time to read the other post, but I will do it later he he...
ReplyDeleteI also dislike it when there are too many tourists around...but I think I'm gonna dislike it more after I've lived here in this quiet village for a long time hi hi hi...
And speaking of nights...my friends are scared of talking to me or chatting with me if it's very late at night here, since I tend to be CRAAAZZYYY/WACKY HA HA HA...;-D
Hi Amel
ReplyDeleteI know you are more busy now so you just cme by when you can.
So you do the weird late night thing too? How funny! :-D